Tao Fa Ziran is commonly understood to mean Tao Follows Itself. But Derek Lin, translator of the Tao Te Ching: Annotated and Explained, says in his blog that this is not quite so.
While we can all easily agree on the meaning of 'Tao', Derek goes on to say that 'Fa' has many meanings and that context is important. In this case it means 'to model after'. So Fa so good, if you'll pardon the witticism.
It is when we come to 'Ziran' that confusion takes place. Many choose to translate it as two separate characters and this give us 'of itself so'. But Ziran as a single character means 'nature' or 'natural'.
All thorough translators would then look for other occurrences of the same character elsewhere in the text. There are many such occurrences of 'Ziran' in the Tao Te Ching and they each are clearly intended to mean nature or natural. And Derek points out that there is no reason to suspect that its use in chapter 25 should be any different.
Humans follow the laws of Earth
Earth follows the laws of Heaven
Heaven follows the laws of Tao
Tao follows the laws of nature.
-- Tao Te Ching, Chapter 25
Therefore Tao follows nature. So what? What's locked inside those three words that is so important to us?
A river follows a course; but that course was carved out of the landscape by itself. So does the river follow the course or does the course follow the river? If Tao is the river and nature the course, which is following which?
Herein lies an important lesson I believe for Taoists that strikes at the heart of how we may cultivate ourselves while never forcing ourselves into contrived effort. In other words, how we can practice wu-wei.
The I Ching (Book of Changes) uses the word 'perseverance' 125 times, usually in the context of perseverance furthering and bringing one success. Hexagram thirty-two, Heng (Duration), goes into the matter more deeply:
Thunder and wind: the image of duration.
Thus the superior man stands firm
And does not change his direction.
In his translation of the text, Richard Wilhelm writes: "Thunder rolls, and the wind blows; both are examples of extreme mobility and so are seemingly the very opposite of duration, but the laws governing their appearance and subsidence, their coming and going, endure. In the same way the independence of the superior man is not based on rigidity and immobility of character. He always keeps abreast of the time and changes with it. What endures is the unswerving directive, the inner law of his being, which determines all his actions."
What we are being told here is that if we are aligned with Tao, we remain flexible and willing to adapt to changing circumstances. However, that flexibility and adaptation is governed by an unchanging 'directive' -- an 'inner law of being' -- about which our actions pivot.
But what of this 'inner law'? How do we shape it so that our actions which flow from it are what we want them to be?
The Ta Chuan (Great Treatise; Heart of the I Ching), also translated here by Richard Wilhelm, says:
"Only when a trend is followed continuously do the results of single actions gradually accumulate in such a way that they become manifest as good fortune or misfortune. Similarly, heaven and earth are the results of lasting conditions. In that all clear, luminous forces constantly rise upward, and that all that is solid and turbid constantly sinks downward, the cosmos separates itself out of chaos: heaven above and earth below. So it is also with regards the sun and the moon: their states of radiance are results of continuous movements and conditions of equilibrium. Thus all movements and actions continued over a long period of time channel out a definite course, which then become laws. According to this view, natural laws are not abstractions fixed once and for all, but sustained processes in which the character of law appears the more definitely the longer they are in operation."
That is, just as a river becomes apparently fixed in its course by virtue of its own enduring nature, so do natural laws -- both inner and outer. Thus, following themselves and not some external and immutable rules, they are open to be shaped. But that shaping must take place over a long period of time. We cannot go to sleep at night one person and wake the following morning another.
A path through a forest, worn by centuries of use, will grow over and return to the forest when nobody walks along it any more. But a new path will eventually be made permanent and it will be this new path that your actions will then take, without contrivance and in full accord with the principle of wu-wei.
Tao follows nature and nature follows Tao. We follow our natures and our natures follow us. But these things take patience and time. That is not always what people want to hear, though.
Often, Eastern philosophies are broken down, repackaged and branded and sold as quick and easy fixes. But due to the culture we are steeped in, our education and life experience, our personal rivers run deeply. Their courses will be interrupted by mountain ranges, chasms and other obstacles. Sometimes their flow will be slow and gentle; at other times rapid and tumultuous. But they are enduring; and it is that enduring quality which can be so powerful for us if we harness it.
Whether for good or for bad: perseverance furthers.
